"'Twas on a day about like this, When, fresh from youthful haunts and scenes, I first beheld yon precipice, And sought these gulches and ravines, To pan, despite the frost and cold, For shining particles of gold; And hewed the rocker and the sluice From out the native pine and spruce. Arrayed in nature's pristine dress This was indeed a wilderness. Nor eye of eagle ever viewed A more forbidding solitude, Nor prospect more completely drear Confronted hardy pioneer. Why came I here? My simple tale Goes back to a New England vale. It is, though simple tale it be, A life's unwritten tragedy: A story, with few incidents, But many years of penitence. As one, for some foul crime pursued, Doth flee, in frenzy rash and blind To wilderness or solitude, I fled, to leave my past behind. I loved a maid, both fair and true, Just where, it matters not, nor who. For forty years, with silent tread, Have silvered many a raven head, Since on her wealth of auburn hair The moonlight shimmered, soft and fair, As where the pine and hemlock stood And sighed in answer to the breeze, With but the stars as witnesses, Our troth was plighted in the wood; A simple rustic tale in truth, Of love and sentimental youth. [Illustration: "Beseamed with countless scars and rents From combat with the elements." _See page 20._] Love is the subtle mystery, The charm, the esoteric spell, Which lures the seraph from on High. To leave the Throne of Light,--for Hell,-- And with resistless shackles binds, In viewless thrall, the captive minds. For who can fathom love's caprice, Supplant her fervid wars with peace, And passion's ardent flame command? Or who presume to understand And read with cabalistic art The hieroglyphics of the heart? [Blank Page] Nor eye of regent, skilled to rule, Nor sage from earth's profoundest school, Nor erudite philosophy On wisdom's heights, pretend to see The fervent secrets of the breast, Which rankle mute and unexpressed. Nor the angelic hosts above In their exuberance of love, Nor demons from the pit can span The depths of woman's love for man. And men, of love's sweet flame bereft, Have but the brutal instincts left.